Thursday, February 28, 2013

Tunisia: Labor unions are counterweight to Islamists

Agence France-Presse

February 8, 2013

The General Union of Tunisian Workers, or UGTT, which called a
general strike Friday in protest at the murder of an opposition leader,
has played a key role in Tunisia's modern history and is a thorn in the
side of the ruling Islamists.

The powerful union, which claims a membership of 500,000 and has a
network of operations with 24 regional branches across the country, is
capable of organising large protests and strikes in response to social
grievances.

Analysts and historians say it has always been a highly politicised
movement, even joining the ranks of the government after independence,
before falling out with Tunisia's first president Habib Bourguiba.

Under the decades-long rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the UGTT was
the only union, and the only national political force other than the
Rally for Constitutional Democracy, the ousted dictator's ruling party.

The UGTT was founded on January 20, 1946 by Farhat Hached, the
nationalist leader whose assassination in 1952, four years before
Tunisia's independence, is blamed on a paramilitary organisation active
under the French protectorate.

Its current secretary general, Houcine Abassi, has headed the organisation since its first post-revolution congress.

The UGTT pursued a policy of accommodation with the former regime and
often won the praise of Ben Ali, as when it dismissed local union
leader Adnane Hajji who was jailed for heading a protest movement in
2008 against corruption, nepotism and unemployment.

The union's leadership was slow to join the uprising against Ben Ali
that erupted in December 2010, when a street vendor set himself on fire
in protest at police harassment, but on the ground its members embraced
the revolt.

It has had tense relations with the ruling Ennahda party since the
Islamists triumphed in October 2011 in Tunisia's first free elections
following the revolution.

That relationship deteriorated in December last year when a
pro-Ennahda militia attacked its headquarters in Tunis, where UGTT
members had gathered to mark the 60th anniversary of Hached's
assassination.

The union called for a general strike in retaliation, which it then
cancelled to avoid destabilising the country, something Ennahda has
repeatedly accused it of.

Since the revolution, the movement has organised anti-government
protests and regional strikes over poverty and unemployment, notably
last November in Siliana, a town southwest of Tunis, which degenerated
into five days of violence.

Throughout its history, the UGTT has only rarely organised national
strikes, including one in 1978, after government repression of
protesters and unionists left 12 people dead, and another, on January
14, 2011, the day Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia.

The latest stoppage, which the union called to protest the
assassination on Wednesday of opposition leader and outspoken Ennahda
critic Chokri Belaid, is expected to be the biggest since Ben Ali left
the country.